Tag: WVR

— World Victory Road‘s next event, “Sengoku II”, is scheduled for May 18th in Japan. MMAWeely has the rumored fighters — although no opponents have been named: Roger Gracie, Satoru Kitaoka, Yoshihiro Nakao, Yuki Sasaki, and Kevin Randleman.

— A Jaime Fletcher and Aaron Rosa fight has been included in ShoXC’s Friday show, scheduled to be aired on Showtime at 11:00 p.m. (ET). The match-up is a light-heavy fight between two up-and-comers. Fletcher is 5-3, losing his last three fights, and Rosa had his ten-fight win streak snapped recently, dropping his record to 10-1. The battle has been added to replace a chick fight between Cris Cyborg (aka, Cyborg Santos‘s wife) and Jen Case. Apparently, Cyborg — the chick version — wasn’t able to get into the states for the fight (taking place in California), hence the cancellation. Her record is 4-0…her husband was 2-2 in his first four pro fights. Ouch.

— 5oz of Pain is reporting that Robbie Lawler might be close to signing an extension with EliteXC. He is currently the organization’s middleweight champ. Lawler is reportedly going to be fighting in EliteXC’s debut on CBS in two months. Robbie has not fought since September of last year and has been battling an injury since December.

Ex-UFC heavyweight champ and PRIDE personality Kevin Randleman has announced on MMAWeekly Radio that he’s “in” with two organizations and will battle very soon. “The Monster” confirmed that he’s joined up with Global Fighting Championships and said of his debut: “As of right now, I am fighting Jeff Monson, June 21 in North Carolina in Bobcat Arena.” Cool, but I’ve been to Bobcat Arena and the toilets are clogged 99% of the time, trust me. I’m just saying.

Jeff Monson and shit-stuffed North Carolina johns aside, Randleman will first jet over to a place he’s quite familiar with: Japan. The fighter battled in the country for years in PRIDE and will do so again:

“My first fight is going to be May 18 in the new Japanese organization, it is not Pride, (but) World Victory Road,” he continued.

Randleman, who hasn’t fought since October 2006 in a loss to Mauricio “Shogun” Rua, has not yet been given an opponent for the World Victory Road fight.

World Victory Road held its first event on Wednesday and announced that both Randleman and Roger Gracie would be fighting on its May event, but it is not yet clear that they would be facing each other.

Glad he clarified that it’s not PRIDE because we were ’bout to get confused since PRIDE has been shut-the-fuck-down. Anywho, according to a Randleman rep an opponent has not been named for the WVR event and contract details are still being hammered out. “The Monster” was 4-6 in PRIDE and 4-3 in the UFC. He is a ho-hum 16-12 overall. Yes, I said ho-hum. It’s the new “sucks”, so get on-board. I was one of the first geniuses to break the term “bitchin”, so I know what I’m doing.

(Peter Graham, doing his best Vanilla Ice at the “Sengoku” press conference.)

World Victory Road’s debut event, “Sengoku”, is slated for tomorrow at 2:30 in the morning (ET). Fight vids will start being available shortly after the show because they know we’re all too lazy to stay up – or get up – at 2:30 a.m. to tune in. The card is a solid start to WVR and as expected, Takanori Gomi and Josh Barnett are big favorites, as is Nick “The Goat” Thompson. Kazuyuki Fujita is also favored big over kickboxer Peter Graham, who is making his MMA debut. Graham, known in kickboxing for his “rolling thunder” cartwheel kick, said some shit about Fujita back at a December press conference for DYNAMITE!! 2007:

One minor surprise took place at the DYNAMITE!! press conference held at a hotel in Osaka. When the MC began taking questions from the reporters, all of sudden a man wearing a red T-shirt stood up. His name is Peter Graham, a K-1 fighter who was there as Nicolas Petas’ teammate. While all the reporters were stunned by this abrupt interruption Graham yelled, “Where is my opponent who was supposed to fight me tomorrow! Chicken!” The MC didn’t know what to do but the interpreter softened a bit and translated what this big man from Australia had just said. Then no one knew how to react to this sudden speech by Graham, so it was basically ignored for then the press conference continued.

Graham revealed after his outburst that Fujita was supposed to fight him at the DYNAMITE!! show, but refused the fight. The Vanilla Ice-doubling big man then decided to publicly embarrass Fujita. This all came out at the “Sengoku” press conference (go here for more pics) and the two fighters had to be separated. Word is Fujita wasn’t so much upset about the remarks Graham had made about him as he was for the kickboxer’s human race-embarrassing sense of fashion.

Video of cartwheel kick attempts by Graham is after the jump. Notice I said “attempts”.

World Victory Road has announced that “Sengoku” – their March 5th show – will feature Takanori Gomi and Duane “Bang” Ludwig squaring off at the National Yoyogi Stadium Gymnasium No. 1. It’s both a stadium and a gymnasium and apparently the first of several like it. You’ll recall that Gomi signed with WVR after the UFC couldn’t come to terms with the superstar lightweight. Gomi earns around $190k per fight – not quite Brock Lesnar money, but still a payday I wouldn’t kick out of bed.

Gomi last fought a year ago when he was submitted by Nick Diaz, but that one was changed to a no-decision after Nick was busted for tokin’. Ludwig beat Shinya Kumazawa via submission last year, then lost to Paul Daley via TKO. He rebounded by beating Mario Stapel with a KO in less than two minutes. He’s 16-7 compared to Gomi’s 27-3 record.

Two other fights were also revealed for WVR’s March 5th event. BodogFight champ Nick “The Goat” Thompson is set to do battle with Fabricio “Pitbull” Monteiro. Ryo Kawamura will face Antonio Braga Neto. The Goat is 34-9-1 and Monteiro is 16-6. His last fight was a TKO loss to Mohamed Khacha, while Thompson is on a ten fight win streak. Kawamura is 7-2-2 in his young career, but went 2-2 in 2007. Neto is undefeated in four professional fights, three of them from last year.

WVR signed Kazuyuki Fujita last week and they have also slated him for “Sengoku”, although an opponent has not been named. Other fighters that are to be involved in the show are:

With these new additions to who they already have, WVR looks poised to put on a solid fucking show. The UFC’s inability to sign or resign top fighters has certainly been the gain of other organizations. WVR has been one to capitalize quickly.